Trump lies, but his lies are the small ones
The Oxford Dictionary declared “post-truth” the word of the year in 2016, with the explanation: “it describes not just particular assertions, but a general characteristic of our age”. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was widely thought to embody this new age. And now, it seems his pres...CONTINUE READING
Pre-colonial society shows humans can live collectively
“If the test of sophistication were whether or not all were fed regardless of rank or whether all contributed to the spiritual and cultural health of the civilisation, Aboriginal Australia might have a much higher rank than some of the nations considered the hallmark of human evolution.” S...CONTINUE READING
There’s nothing good about Turnbull’s sex ban
What to do when desperately trying to keep your government from sinking in a mire of salacious scandal brought on by Barnaby Joyce’s sordid and hypocritical personal life? Malcolm Turnbull’s solution is a new “code of conduct” for government ministers, which bans them, married or single, f...CONTINUE READING
Was there a parliamentary alternative in Russia 1917?
“He who controls the past controls the future.” So says Winston Smith in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Makes me think of the gaggle of reputable historians who roll out fictional accounts of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Bolshevism? Workers’ power? Don’t even think of it; listen...CONTINUE READING
Russia 1917: when the people rose
A century ago, Russian workers blazed a new path in human history. Their revolution of 1917 inspired millions around the globe and struck terror into the hearts of the rich.CONTINUE READING
Women, class and the Bolsheviks
Most accounts of the Russian Revolution of 1917 rightly emphasise the role of women workers in Petrograd on International Women’s Day (IWD), when their strikes sparked the mass movement that overthrew the tsar. But then they disappear regarding the rest of the year – except for the women’s...CONTINUE READING
Russia 1917 A radical workers’ democracy comes to life
The outbreak of revolution throughout Russia in February 1917 brought millions of people who previously had little say over politics right to the centre of political life. Historian Rex Wade describes how masses of people “burst forth with a dazzling display of self-assertiveness, public m...CONTINUE READING
Henry Lawson and the ‘Australian Legend’
Romanticisation of the outback and the bush has been an enduring theme in the construction of Australian nationalism. Self-reliance in the face of an inhospitable natural environment allegedly epitomises, or at least captures something central to, “the Aussie spirit”. Think of the endless...CONTINUE READING
Crimes against children in NT jails
The banality of evil: Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase echoes in my brain after watching the Four Corners report on the torture of children in Northern Territory jails. First was the swaggering, joking corrections minister John Elferink mocking Caro Meldrum-Hanna, the ABC journalist investiga...CONTINUE READING